


The Sound of Silence

by aralias



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Not Wayward Son Compliant, Watford Fifth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-05 02:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20481287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: “But that spring, I actually did try and take Snow down.”Fifth year. Baz wins – and deals with the consequences.





	1. Regret

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before 'Keep Calm', and then abandoned it. For some reason it's hard going when it should have been quick to write. Never mind - at least it's out before 'Wayward Son' gives me lots of new canon to chew on.
> 
> ETA - the whole fic is obviously an AU, but there are a minor point about how magic works in this fic that isn't compliant with what we learn about magic in 'Wayward Son'. I thought about changing it, because it's not a major plot point, but in the end I left it.

**BAZ **

I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t think I could hurt him. I didn’t think anything _could_ hurt him.

Obviously, I _did_ mean to.

I was angry – and I was desperate. Snow wouldn’t leave me alone, hadn’t left me alone for almost a year, and I wanted him suffer, as I’d been suffering. I wanted him to go away. Leave me to sort through my feelings for one minute.

Fiona hadn’t even told me what the tape recorder would do before I used it. She’d only said it would take the Mage’s Heir out of our way for good. Which it didn’t.

It did hurt him, though.

_“Don’t look so glum, Basil,”_ Fiona said when we met for our post-scheme debrief just outside the school grounds. _“The Mage won’t be able to keep him in school forever. Not if he can’t do magic anymore.”_

_“He _can_ do magic,” _I pointed out – because he can. The moment he realised what had happened, Snow flung something at me that knocked me back into the undergrowth of the Wavering Wood. (It felt like **head over heels, **although he didn’t say anything so I can't be sure.)

_“Not real magic,”_ Fiona said sniffly. As though it – Snow – wasn’t one of the most frightening and wonderful phenomenon anyone in our world had ever seen. “_He can’t _speak_ with magic. From what you’ve said, I don’t think he ever could.”_

I probably did say that at some point. I may even have meant it when I said it. But it’s not true.

Simon Snow is – _was_ – the most powerful mage who ever lived. He used to stutter and stumble over his spells because, unlike every other magician in our history, he was raised by Normals. As far as I can tell, nobody really spoke to him until he was eleven. If that had happened to any of the other cretins in our year, I doubt they’d be able to light so much as a candle, let alone fight off a chimera.

After five years, I’m used to him pulling the ancient Sword of Mages (the same sword I can see in half a dozen family portraits at home) out of the air at a moment’s notice. It’s just a thing that Snow does all too often. Irritating – until you remember that the sword doesn’t _have _to appear for Snow. It just does, every time. Snow’s heart is simply that fucking pure.

It’s not like he ever forgets that particular incantation, either. Or stumbles over the words. And he always says them like he means them (because he _does _mean them), which everyone knows is how you make a spell work _well. _

He’s not hopeless, whatever I might have said.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the incarnation, either, even though the Pledge would never work for me. (I’m not the Mage’s Heir, and my heart definitely isn’t pure). I’ve heard it often enough – from Snow. He’s used that sword to threaten me, and (against his will) to defend me. Whenever I think about that spell, I can hear the words in his voice. I hear Simon Snow declare that he will defend the weak and piss off the mighty. Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone could listen to him saying something like that _without _falling in love with him. Anyway, it was too much for me.

So, I destroyed him.

I took his voice. I did the worst thing one magician can do to another.

Because I couldn’t stand the fact that Simon Snow kept following me around. Because I hadn’t asked Fiona what the tape recorder would do. Because I couldn’t stand the fact that I’m in love with him while he was just trying to catch me drinking blood so he could get me expelled.

It seemed like a reasonable response at the time. 

*

I’m sitting in our room, trying to do my Latin translation, when the door opens. Or rather, slams open.

It’s Snow, of course. Nobody else ever visits us, apart from the Mage who comes to see Snow occasionally, and even he would knock. Snow just barges in, which is one of the reasons I always change in the bathroom.

He’s been away for the last week. At Doctor Wellbelove’s, trying to get his voice back.

It hasn’t worked.

I know this because Wellbelove’s wife, though not technically on our side, is enough of a socialite that she still has tea with my stepmother at the club on a weekly basis. (We might be out with the Mage, but we’re still magic’s first family and our house is larger than hers, which means we must be worth knowing.) We get quite a lot of our information about the opposition this way.

Daphne told Fiona, who rang me last night to gloat, which is how I know. Wellbelove is stumped, as are the rest of the Coven.

_“It’s not actually irreversible, though, is it?”_ I pressed. _“They could find a way. To get Snow’s voice back.”_

Fiona just laughed and I had to hang up before she realised I was having a panic attack.

I’d assumed, until then, that someone would find a cure. That it was temporary. I know Fiona’s powerful, but she’s hardly omnipotent. I’d assumed _someone _would be able to work out what she’d done, even if I haven’t been able to. (I’m _sixteen, _for Crowley’s sake. There must be better mages out there.)

I thought Fiona would have left herself a backdoor. I _hoped_.

But there might really be nothing. Nothing anyone can do.

Simon Snow might be like this forever. This might be it. And I did this to him.

“Close the door – there’s a draft,” I say now.

My voice sounds normal, which is a relief. And I don’t turn around. Not even when Snow throws a pen at me (not _at _me – it misses by a good two feet – but the intention is clear).

“Anathema,” I remind him. Trying to sound as though this is any other day. A normal fight.

I hear him throw his things down. A few moments later I hear him come back and then he hurls a notebook onto the table in front of me. It hits the keys of my laptop with a clatter.

_“I know it was you” _is written in Snow’s scrawl across the page.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lie.

Snow grabs at the book again and writes furiously before shoving the book back in my face.

“I can’t read that,” I tell him and this time I’m actually telling the truth. His handwriting his horrible. And it’s worse because he’s not even trying right now.

Snow’s face contorts and I know he’d be growling he could still make sounds. He pushes my shoulder out of his way and leans over my laptop keys.

“That’s my homework,” I snap, but Snow is already typing directly into the document.

_“I know it was you who stole my voice. I can’t prove it but I will. I’m not going to stop following you until I work it out and when I do you’ll be sorry you complete dick.”_

I could tell him that I’m already sorry. That I regret what I’ve done. I want to tell him that if I’d known what the recorder would do, I wouldn’t have used it.

I don’t. I can’t beg for his forgiveness because I know I don’t deserve it. (I just wanted him to leave me alone.)

I select the words he’s written and delete them. “If I were you, Snow, I’d be trying to work out how to get my voice back rather than making unnecessary accusations without evidence.”

There’s a hand on my shoulder and then he’s hauling me up out of my seat to face him. He’s furious – I can see that now. Far beyond anything I’ve ever seen from him, even when I pushed him down the stairs. He actually shakes me.

“Anathema,” I remind him – again. But I can’t quite look him in the eye.

Snow has to take my face between his hands like he’s about to kiss me. For a moment, I think that’s what he’s doing, but he just wants to make sure I’m paying attention. That I see the anger in his eyes. And the shadows underneath them – he hasn’t slept well since it happened. (Neither have I.)

He’s heart-stoppingly beautiful, as always. Or at least he would be, if my heart hadn’t already stopped years ago.

_I know it was you,_ he mouths.

*

As usual, Snow is true to his word. He was already generally suspicious of me, always on the hunt for some sign I was up to something; now he has a real crime to try and detect, he’s absolutely ruthless.

When I come back to our room after violin practice the day after he returns to Watford, I find he’s turned out my wardrobe and all the drawers of my desk. He’s also turned out his _own _wardrobe – presumably in case I’m smart enough to dispose of evidence, but so thick I chose to dispose of it amongst Snow’s own trousers. (Actually, the only evidence – Aunt Fiona’s tape recorder – is safely stowed in Dev and Niall’s room on the second floor. I dropped it in the Wavering Wood when Snow hit me with that silent spell, but I went back for it while he was away because I thought he might try something like this.)

The room is littered with clothes and books and papers. 

I’ve suspected for a while that Snow goes through my things while I’m not around, but he usually tidies up after himself. The invasion of privacy has never been this blatant. He’s even left another note on my now-unmade bed:

_“Just because there’s nothing here, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find. I’m onto you.”_

It’s a threat – which means it’s ridiculous that I even consider smoothing the crumpled paper out and keeping it. Instead, I ball it up and throw it into the bin. Then I wave my wand in a broad circle, taking in the whole room as well as the _en suite_ because I can smell my shampoo strongly enough that it must be dripping onto the floor.

** _“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”_ **

The clothes and books and papers fly back into the proper places. The spell even makes Snow’s bed for him. I should probably muss it again, so he doesn’t think I’m trying to help him – but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve done enough. Besides, Snow himself arrives just as I’ve finished.

He’s still angry – and his unchecked magic yanks at drawers and his bed sheets I’ve just smoothed down. The air is thick with his fury.

He probably thinks he can catch me checking whatever hiding place I’ve used to make sure he hasn’t discovered it – but I’m just standing in the centre of the room. He looks disappointed.

I’m about to sneer and leave. (I don’t think I can be in the same room as Snow right now – the silences he can’t help but leave seem to demand I fill them with some sort of confession. That I’m guilty. That I’m in love with him. Both seem equally likely at this point.) Then I see his gaze light on my violin case. Lying on top of my bed – the only thing of mine that wasn’t here while he searched the room.

“No,” I snap, but it’s too late. He’s already got the case open and he’s tugging my violin out with one hand, his fingers tight around the strings, as he searches the lining for answers we both know aren’t there. I know I can't pull it back from him with magic – his grip is too tight.

“Snow, put that down.”

I’m trying to sound intimidating – but I know it isn’t working. Snow was the one who lost his voice in the spell, but something’s happened to mine as well. I noticed it last night. The fire’s gone out of it. I sound weak – on the verge of tears.

In destroying Snow I’ve destroyed myself. I should have known it was inevitable.

Snow raises an eyebrow – and the violin towards the hard, wooden frame of the bed. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he’s asking me why he shouldn’t smash it. Shatter it into tuneless fragments.

He’s never done this before. In the five years we’ve lived together, he’s never once threatened my possessions. What would be the point? I can mend most of them with magic. But the violin is different. Music is its own form of magic. Not higher, but not the same. You can’t make food with magic, not food that will satisfy anyway. The principle is similar with music. Even the greatest magicians make instruments by hand.

The violin won’t be same if it breaks. Even if the sound is the same, I’ll know. I’ll hear the imperfection where there wasn’t anything before. And I could buy another one, of course. But this the one I want. The one that’s mine.

“Please,” I hear myself say. My voice is shaking. “It was my grandfather’s.”

If I were Snow, that might be all I needed. The push. I’ve as good as admitted it will hurt me if he destroys my violin. That it will hurt me in something like the way I’ve hurt him.

He could force me to admit what I’ve done with this threat. I’m already half way there. I’d tell him – I think I want to tell him. I just need the excuse.

But Snow isn’t like me. He’s _merciful. _(It’s one of the things I’ve always liked – and hated - most about him.) He sighs – soundlessly – and puts the violin back in the case.

I have to shut my eyes to stop them prickling. I’m not going to cry about a _violin_ – not in front of Snow. (Is what I’m crying about?)

While I’m not looking, the door bangs open and closed. When I open my eyes again, Snow’s gone.

I put my violin away at the bottom of my wardrobe. (It should be safe. He’s seen that there’s nothing there – and anyway, Snow’s as good as admitted that he won’t do anything to it, even though he should.) Then I head for the door. I need to get the tape recorder back from Niall. I wasn’t able to do anything with it before, but I think I have to keep trying. If I want him back.

As I pass the third-floor landing, one of the shadows detaches itself from the darkness. 

He follows me down to the second floor. I shut the door on him when Dev lets me inside – but I know Snow is out there, waiting for me, and I don’t stay long.

*

It doesn’t get better.

I didn’t expect it to, of course, but it really doesn’t. It gets worse.

I see Snow at my heels wherever I go. He follows me to breakfast, and to class. (Snow’s is in all but one of my classes this year. We picked specialisations before first term officially started, which I stupidly thought would give us time apart. Somehow, Snow picked almost exactly the same subjects as I did. I still don’t know how he found out what I’d chosen.) He lingers outside the boy’s changing room and then watches me all the time I’m on the pitch.

In a spectacularly awful turn of events, I have to witness his break-up with Wellbelove over dinner, three weeks before the end of term. She explains it’s not the voice-loss that’s a problem (although if it really isn't that, her timing is horrible). It’s that she hasn’t seen Snow alone since Christmas and doesn’t think she’s likely to.

_“I deserve more from a relationship than this, Simon.”_

Even _that _isn’t enough to throw Snow off the scent. Not even the complete destruction of his relationship. He catches up with me moments after I leave the dining hall. Grabbing my shoulder and slamming his fist into my face.

He’s shouting at me – or at least he would be if he could. I can’t hear it, of course, but I can guess what he’s saying.

_You did this. This is all your fault. _

Normally I don’t let Snow actually hit me. (For all my depravities, at least I don’t get off on this sort of thing. Also, I like my face the way it is and I’m much stronger than him, so I don’t have to let him rearrange it. He broke my nose in first year, but that was before I came into my powers.)

But things aren’t normal right now.

“Back off, you lunatic,” I spit at him, but I know he’s right.

It’s all my fault. It’s my fault that he’s like this. (It’s even conceivable that I _am _the reason his girlfriend just dumped him. I’ve been flirting with her constantly since third year, ever since I realised Snow liked her. And while I don’t want him to follow me around, I admit he might not have done it if I hadn’t strongly implied I was going to off him almost every day we’ve been together.)

I know it’s my fault. And I know I still don’t know what to do and I know time’s running out.

So, I let him break my nose. Again. Because – I don’t know. I thought it might help. Him. To have someone to take it out on.

Instead it just hurts like shit.

Snow has the audacity to look horrified when it happens. I even think he’s going to apologise, and I don’t think I could bear it. So I shove him away from me, fast enough and hard enough that he falls to the ground. He has to remember which of us is the wronged party, here.

Obviously, he waits outside the nurse’s office, still covered in my blood. And then follows me back to our room.

I have to wait until he’s asleep before sneaking out to the Catacombs - which means I’m even more exhausted than usual. I have to do it _every _night. Because Snow is still watching me _every _day.

And I can’t call Fiona to demand she think _again_ about how in Snakes we can reverse what she’s done.

And I can’t work on the tape-recorder, except at night. In the dark. After I’ve finished drinking rat blood and feeling sorry for myself.

Not exactly an ideal work environment.

Practically the only breakthrough I have (_if_ you can call it a breakthrough) comes when I plug my headphones into the tape-recorder.

I’m up in our room and Snow is watching me. Sitting distrustfully on his own bed, not even pretending to do his homework. He’s also not practicing sign language, which is stupid because it’s one of the only things keeping him in school right now.

Because of course, Fiona is still trying to get Snow removed.

She’s petitioned the Coven twice already. Arguing that since Snow can’t talk, there’s nothing for him to learn at Watford. Obviously, the Mage has refused her request, but I can tell his position is weakening because he’s announced that Snow will be learning British Sign Language while the rest of us are learning Greek. It’s “just another language” apparently, and so there’s no reason Snow can’t learn to cast in it.

No reason beyond the fact that no one ever has before. And that no sign language is an exact match for the spoken language we use for spellwork. And that Snow is terrible at languages.

Bunce and I are both (separately) trying to test out whether or not it’s possible _at all_. I’ve seen her trying to cast **Some like it hot **without speaking during breakfast – unsuccessfully. Meanwhile I’m struggling with **Make a wish**_, _a spell I’ve been able to cast verbally since I was five. I don’t know whether it’s because the sign for _wish_ can sometimes mean _hungry, _or because I don’t know what I’m doing, or just because the signing interferes with my wandwork. But whatever it is, the spell isn’t working.

And I haven’t seen Snow try and cast anything outside of lessons at all. He’s still learning the basics. _Hello. Thank you. Where is the dangerous magical object? _

If I can’t fix this – him – before the summer holidays, I’m not at all sure he’ll come back for sixth year. And that was the point, that was why I did it, so that I could get some _peace_, concentrate on my schoolwork instead of how Snow makes me feel. But I know, now, that I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to be the one who made him go away.

Which is why I’m trying something this idiotic.

The headphones are in my ears and I press play.

I’m not worried that Snow will see what I’m doing and realise what I’ve done – he doesn’t know what the recorder is, so he’ll just assume I’m listening to music – but there’s no way to be sure if the magic will work in the same way it did last time. Whether it will take my voice as well.

It doesn’t matter, though. If that happens. I know I deserve it.

Instead I hear Snow’s voice for the first time in weeks.

_“––can’t just say something like that. You can’t––”_

It’s what I expected – what I _hoped _would happen – but I still turn my head to check that it’s not the real Snow. That I haven’t fixed him, somehow, without even realising it. But he’s still as silent and watchful as before.

The voice is on the tape. Just a short snatch of it – the second half of whatever he was shouting at me the day I did it. I press stop and wind it back. Press play again.

_“––can’t just say something like that. You can’t––”_

I don’t even remember what it was that made him say that, now. I know I’d been trying to rile him up all day, so it could have been anything. Whatever I thought would tear him away from his friends. Make him lose his temper.

I rewind the tape again. Listen to him shouting. To the last thing he ever said. And I try not to cry because Snow is _watching _and I’m not that pathetic.

_“––can’t just say something like that. You can’t––”_

There aren’t any other recordings of Snow as far as I know – nobody ever interviewed him for the local radio. And phones are banned at Watford so I doubt any of his friends have videos of him. (I haven’t asked.)

This might be it.

I shouldn’t revel in it. There’s nothing in this tape for me – just the final sounds of Snow’s utter disdain – but I feel like I’ve been dying of thirst and this is, at last, a drop of water.

It’s not a real breakthrough, because I can’t do anything with it. I can’t do _anything_.

I can just listen. So, I do.

I listen.

And regret all the choices I ever made.

*

Snow doesn’t seem to have a plan to get his voice back. No plan _beyond _tailing me until I crack, anyway.

I take to spending more and more time in the library between classes, because Bunce is always in there, trying to work it out. If I’m there too, he will at least usually go and sit with her, so she can tell him what she’s found. Because Bunce is a good friend, she insists on telling him in sign language, which means that Snow has to practice. It also means it’s very easy for me to “eavesdrop” on what they’re saying, because signing is visible across the library floor and I've been reading Snow's books over his shoulder.

She’s got nothing, as far as I can tell. Or nothing that works. She’s pursued most of the same avenues that I have, even though she hasn’t got all the facts yet. The school year is about to end and neither of us are any closer to figuring out how to reverse what I’ve done.

Right now, Snow is saying: _This is stupid. _

Bunce replies more fluently, the large purple ring on her hand glinting in the over-bright reading light as she moves her hands through another explanation.

_Rest is traditional cure for lost voice. I want to put you under for the weekend. OK?_

Snow: _Slept lots already at Doctor W. Didn’t work. _

Bunce: _Magic sleep?_

Snow: _Yes_.

“Nicks and Slick, Simon,” Bunce says out loud. “You could have _said. _I’ve been working on that for hours._”_

Snow shrugs and signs: _Can’t say. _

I think it’s a _joke_, although no one laughs, not even Snow. It might just have been a statement of fact.

I’ve brought the tape-recorder with me, of course. It’s become a nervous habit to switch it on when I need to concentrate. The sound of Snow’s anger. (_“––can’t just say something like that. You can’t––”_ ) Listen, rewind, and listen again as Bunce shifts the book she was reading to the floor and opens another one.

Snow isn’t angry now.

If I had to guess, I’d say he’s tired, even though I’ve never seen it before. I suppose even Snow must find it exhausting to be constantly bubbling over with righteous indignation.

I watch him drop his chin onto his outstretched hands. He hasn’t cut his hair since the beginning of the year and his long curls flop down in front of him over the books. He doesn’t even sit up when Bunce asks about me although I think his eyes do flick over in my direction. When he responds, it’s just with small twitches of his body.

Bunce:_ Baz still hasn’t told you anything? _

Snow shakes his head.

Bunce: _Maybe he really did have nothing to do with it. _

Another head shake.

Snow: _Baz did it. Won’t say. _

(The sign they use for me is two fingers, the index and the middle finger, tapped against the side of the throat. The sign for vampire. Though I suppose it might also be Snow’s way of accusing me of taking his voice every time he mentions me. I hate it.)

Bunce: If_ Baz won’t say, you could stop following him._

Snow shrugs again. I assume that means he just doesn’t want to argue about this (it is his only plan after all) but it’s more than that. He sits up.

Snow: _Have to next year._

Bunce taps her shoulder. _Why?_

Snow: _I asked head-teacher to let me stay with E-b-b next year. If I still can’t do magic. _

Bunce: _And?_

Snow: _He said – Greatest Mage needs magic. _

“That doesn’t mean he’s not going to let you come back,” Bunce says. I think I can see tears in her eyes. “He has to let you. He probably means he’s going to work really hard to find a cure. Because he’s right – we need you. And you need magic.”

Snow looks as though he’s about to shrug again, but I don’t let him. I’m already on my feet, pulling the headphone buds out of my ears.

There’s a creak of wood on wood as Snow pushes his chair back and surges to his feet too as I walk over. As though it would be too much of an affront to his dignity to have me standing over him. 

I used to love making him do this, react to me. It made me feel – I don’t know. That at least we were _equal_. Yes, I’m in love with him, but at least he’s not indifferent to me. At least I make him angrier than anyone else he knows. That’s something.

Since this is where it got us, I’ve started to think I’d have been better off staking myself the moment I met him. I’ve probably doomed the World of Mages by taking out its hero. _And _I’ve broken my own heart. 

I drop the tape-recorder onto the desk, on top of all the useless books Bunce has been looking through.

“This might help.”

I don’t look at Snow as I say it. Not even to see if he’s relieved. If he realises what I’ve given him. Proof he was right. A chance to get his voice back. (Bunce isn’t cleverer than me, but she also isn’t constantly being pursued by Snow and presumably she's able to sleep. She might be able to figure it out.) I don’t even check to see if he’s still looking at me. But I touch my fist to my chest and circle it over my heart.

_Sorry. _

I feel I have to say something. To explain myself. And it’s easier, somehow, if I don’t have to say it out loud.

Then I stride out of the library as fast as possible. Out through the corridors and across the courtyard. I don’t stop until I’m back in Mummer’s House, back at the top of the tower in our room. I don’t want to give Snow or Bunce a chance to interrogate me about what I’ve done.

I also don’t want to change my mind, but I think there’s a lot less chance of that happening. Even though what I’ve just done is probably a one-way ticket to expulsion.

Snow’s probably gone right to the Mage with the pocket-recorder. With the proof that I attacked a student in cold blood and that I’ve been sitting on information that could have helped him for weeks now. Given that my family has been loudly calling for Snow’s removal, I can only imagine the Mage will turn the tables on us. Arguing that I’m too dangerous to be allowed in the school. (I probably am.)

But I don’t exactly care anymore.

I’ve always known that Snow would kill me. When I was younger, I assumed I thought this because he was so much more powerful than I was. And he _is _powerful. Obviously, he’s more powerful than anyone I’ve ever met. I can get drunk off the magic that hangs around him, without him even noticing. The air shimmers when he’s angry and he called lightning out of the sky in his first week here. I remember how it made his eyes sparkle, how it glinted in his hair.

The truth is, though, that Snow is going to kill me because there’s no way we’re getting out of this war without fighting each other. And I can’t imagine a world without Simon Snow. I can’t imagine myself choosing to make that kind of world. Even these weeks have been a torment and Snow is still here, walking around, still bronze haired and blue eyed. Still as infuriating handsome as ever, but with a bit less life in him than before. A bit less of what I love about him.

I know that if I had my choice again (if I'd known what the recorder would do) I wouldn't have used it.

So I know that when the time comes, I won’t fight back. I’ll let him thrust the Sword of Mages deep into my dead heart. I’ll welcome it.

I’m not suicidal, not even close. I want to live. I want to be happy.

But rather me than him.

Rather my death than a world without him.

That means, there wasn’t ever really a choice. I was just holding out for as long as I could, but I was always going to crack. If I can keep Snow at Watford, give him his voice back, then I’ll pay the price.

I think about packing my things, but I know I'd rather make a scene than go quietly, so I don't. That means I’m at a loss for what to do with myself. I thought Snow might have followed me up here by now, that he’d want to but presumably he’s busy with Bunce trying to crack the tape-recorder. Or he’s with the Mage.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I need to do _something _while I wait for Snow to come and glare silently at me. Snow still hasn’t destroyed my violin, even though he’s had plenty of opportunities, so practice is viable and usually gives me an opportunity to clear my head. My only other idea (weeping into Snow’s pillow) probably isn’t healthy, even though it feels like it would require significantly less effort. I pull the case out and head for the door – which opens just as I get there.

It’s Snow, of course.

Now he’s back, I want to stay and see whether he and Bunce have made any progress. Perhaps Snow wouldn’t tell me, but I’ve always been good at reading him. If he’s found something, he probably won’t be able to keep it a secret for long.

But it would look odd – I assume – if I stayed now, since I was clearly on my way out when he arrived. Normally we try avoid each other. Or at least, _I_ try and avoid Snow.

Besides – I do want to practice the violin. I don’t want Snow to think my whole life revolves around him, even though it obviously does. So I step aside to let him through and then take the stone stairs downwards.

“Hey Baz,” Snow calls after me. “I think you forgot this.”

I’m only a few steps down. I turn – fast enough to see him throw the wretched pocket-recorder towards me. Not fast enough to catch it, though. Not with my violin weighing down my dominant hand.

I can’t stop it from happening. I see the device leave his hand. Arc upwards and drop sharply towards the cold, hard floor of the tower stairs. I see it smash as it lands. The case cracking open. The tape jerks loose and unspools over the stone.

It’s too late, but I snatch up the recorder anyway and wave my wand over it. “**_As you were._**_” _

The spell doesn’t work – I knew it wouldn’t. The recorder is a magickal artefact. It can’t be easily affected by other magic. But I try it again, pressing the sides of the case back together with my hands and with the spell. **_“As you were!”_**

I feel like crying.

It’s over. After all these weeks, this is it. It’s all gone. The only recording of Snow in existence. I gave to him – I trusted him with it, I trusted _Bunce, _and now there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do to get it back. There’s nothing we can do to get _him _back.

Snow is standing at the top of the stairs in the doorway looking bemused. “It’s all right,” he tells me.

“_How_ in Snakes is it all right?” I demand. “You do realise that could have been––”

And then I think about what he’s saying. What he _said_.

And then I do start crying.


	2. Redemption

**SIMON**

I’ve always known Baz was going to kill me.

I mean – he told me he was when we were eleven. Then he tried to set a chimera on me _and _he pushed me down the stairs, so it's not like I had to try very hard to figure it out. (I know he’d say that he didn’t succeed either of those times, so they don't count, but the nurse said I was lucky to only get concussion from the stairs thing. I thought Baz would probably try again because it’d almost worked. I spent the rest of the year walking around with my back to the wall so he couldn’t sneak back up on me, but for some reason he didn’t. Probably because I was being so vigilant.)

Thinking about it – which I have been, since this all happened – it’s a pretty weird thing for an eleven-year-old to say. Even a really weird eleven-year-old, like Baz was. _“I’m going to kill you.” _

I didn’t think it was weird then_._ Living in a Home, people threatened each other all the time. Most of them didn’t mean it, they just didn’t want you moving their shit. I thought Baz was like that at first. And it’s true – he doesn’t want me to touch his stuff, but after a while I realised he meant it. He really wanted to kill me.

Even then, I didn’t question it. I had no idea what it would be like living with magicians. I thought maybe they didn’t have the same laws as Normals and killing people was all right as long as the people you killed were magicians too.

But after a few years living at Watford, I worked out that if Baz or I ever did manage to kill each other (and let’s face it, realistically it would definitely be him who killed me – he’s much better at magic), whoever was left would definitely get expelled. Then they'd get their wand snapped _and_ they’d be handed over to the police.

Baz really likes school. He’s always been top of the class and I know it’s important to him to do well because his mum was the headmistress. And he loves magic. It wouldn’t make sense for him to throw it all away. And it’s not like he isn't smart enough to figure out what would happen to him, if he succeeded. He is. He’s the smartest person I know – unfortunately.

Even Penny’s never questioned the fact that Baz wants to kill me, though. She thinks I talk about him too much and that I should just let him get on with his evil plots, but she’s never said, _“Simon, I don’t think Baz wants to kill you," _and I'm pretty sure she would have done, if she thought I was making the whole thing up.

It’s probably because Baz hasn’t stopped tormenting me since we were eleven. Mostly low-level stuff, not full-on murder attempts. Just casually dick moves, like sticking my feet to the floor or making my tea cold just seconds before I try and drink it.

Anyway, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when Baz stole my voice. He did practically the same thing to me – twice – in third year. **Cat got your tongue**, which is a fucking awful spell. It actually takes your tongue _away. _You have to go around with this weird empty feeling in your mouth, trying to work out how to even swallow, until you can find a friend to reverse it for you.

(I told Baz the reason I never cast that spell on him is that he doesn’t have any friends, so it wouldn’t be fair. He just sneered.)

I thought that it was the same spell again, to begin with. That it was the same awful shit as third year, the only difference being Baz had worked out how to cast spells without speaking. 

Penny says I should’ve realised that something much worse than normal had happened right then and there, since no one (apart from me – _“and that’s not exactly a precedent, Simon”_) has ever cast a spell without speaking. Even casting spells under your breath is supposed to be dead impressive.

I didn’t think anything was weird about that day at all, though.

It was just normal. A normal day. Baz was being horrible, but that _is _normal. He’d just made Philippa Stainton cry, which I’d have said was impossible because normally Philippa’s so perky she makes Trixie look quiet and withdrawn, but Baz always goes right for the kill shot.

This time, what he said was, _“Haven’t you realised that Snow would rather kiss a nine-toed troll than you, Stainton? He might be thick, but he isn’t blind.”_

I hadn’t even realised that Philippa liked me. I mean, she always seemed to be there when I was trying to follow Baz (which was a bit annoying actually. Not because of Philippa, but it’s hard to be stealthy when you’re with someone who can’t stop giggling), but I thought she was just being nice. She, of all people, knows I’m dating Agatha – well, I _was _dating Agatha at that point. They’re roommates.

Anyway, why would Philippa like _me? _I’m not even sure why _Agatha_ likes me (sometimes I’m not even sure that Agatha likes me.) (And given that she broke up with me a few weeks ago for no reason, I know that wasn’t just me being paranoid). Penny likes me – but she doesn’t like me like a boyfriend. She says I’m a disaster. I _know_ Baz thinks I am.

So I thought he must be wrong, clutching at straws. But then Philippa started crying and ran off.

Later, Penelope told me that Philippa's crush on me is one of the main reasons that she (Philippa) and Agatha don’t really get on.

_“Why didn’t you tell me??!” _I asked her. (I had to write everything down by that point, because Baz had stolen my voice.)

I didn’t even realise Agatha and Philippa weren’t friends. I thought everyone was friends with their roommate, apart from me and Baz. And Penny and Trixie, I suppose. But Rhys and Gareth definitely like each other. Most of the time.

_“It was really obvious, Simon,” _Penny said._ “I thought you knew.” _

Baz thought it was hilarious, obviously. Because other people’s feelings are always a joke to him. (And I guess he probably thinks the idea of anyone finding me attractive is hilarious.) Once Philippa was gone, he just walked off laughing, across the courtyard and out over the drawbridge, hands in his pockets.

I did think about going after Philippa, but I figured it would be really awkward for both of us, since I wasn’t going to break up with Agatha. (You don’t break up with Agatha.) Also, I thought Baz might be counting on me going after her and I wasn’t going to let him get away with _that _or with what he’d said to Philippa.

_“Oi, arsehole!” _I yelled after him as he sauntered towards the Woods. _“You know you can’t just say something like that.” _

Baz turned then, so I saw the moment he cast the spell, even though I didn’t _see _it, if that makes sense. What I mean is I saw the way his eyes changed, the way they went wide, as my voice died in my throat.

**_Cat got your tongue,_** I thought as it happened. _Fucking Baz. I hate this one. _

Clearly, it didn’t take long for me to realise that I still had my tongue. That was my first clue that something was up. And then Penny told me she couldn’t lift the spell.

And then the Mage told me.

And then Doctor Wellbelove told me.

At that point I realised that whatever Baz had done to me was serious. Really serious. Doctor Wellbelove's always been able to fix everything before. He’s a genius. He even reattached my arm last year after a goblin got in a lucky curse.

I wanted to go back to school immediately and make Baz tell me what had happened. I couldn't - I still had to stay while a few of Doctor Wellbelove's posh doctor friends came to look over me and agree with him that I was probably a hopeless case. (Fortunately Baz wasn't around for that part. He would have agreed with them.) I had to stay for a week. Penelope had already told me that I must be wrong – that Baz couldn’t be behind it because I hadn’t heard him say anything – but I was still surprised when the Mage refused to make official enquiries. 

_“This is a delicate political moment, Simon,”_ the Mage explained._ “And taking a magician’s voice is a very serious crime, punishable in kind. I can’t simply accuse Basilton or his family without proof, I’m sorry.”_

I knew there was proof somewhere, though. I told the Mage I’d find it, even though I _also_ knew Baz had already had a week without anyone watching him, so he could have already destroyed all the evidence there was. I don't think he believed me. But more than anything, I thought: I know Baz. I know him better than anyone. I knew he’d give himself away eventually.

And - I was right. About that anyway. He did give himself away.

I think I might have been wrong about everything else, though.

*

Right now, Baz is crying in the middle of the staircase.

I'm not really sure what to do about it.

Normally I’m the one who bursts into tears; Baz, meanwhile, is always fucking cool about everything. He didn’t cry when I broke his nose a few weeks ago, even though I could see he was in a lot of pain. Or when I broke his nose the first time, even though he was just a little kid, then. 

He’s definitely crying now, though. Clutching at the step above him with one hand and trying to stop me seeing by covering his eyes with the other hand. His whole body is shaking, though, so it’s hard to miss it. And he keeps making these loud gasping noises whenever he runs out of air.

I suppose I could have told him I’d got my voice back a bit more gently than I did. I didn’t think he’d react this way, though. Even after everything I’ve seen since I came back.

I also thought he’d catch the tape-recorder, since Baz has amazing reflexes, but I don’t mind that he didn’t. It means I don’t have to worry about whether I should give it to the Mage or not. I’m surprised Baz isn’t relieved that all the evidence is gone, but as soon as it hit the stone, he started to try and fix it. Maybe because he knew it wasn’t possible, but I don’t think so. 

He hasn’t reacted like I expected him to at all since I got back from Doctor Wellbelove’s. 

I thought he’d be smug. (Smugger than usual, anyway.) He’d won. And – as far as he knew – he was going to get away with it.

Baz isn’t very good at hiding his feelings. When he comes top in a test, he always smirks the same weird half smile, like he’s trying to pretend to be modest but also wants everyone to know he’s actually really pleased. When he scores in football (which he does all the time) he punches the air. And when he managed to talk himself out of detention after he set that chimera on me, he gloated about it for weeks.

I assumed that was how he’d give himself away. That he’d be unable to resist laughing about exactly how stupid I was.

I didn’t expect him to feel _guilty_ or to give me the evidence himself. He said _sorry_. Penny confirmed it. (How does Baz know even know sign language?)

I definitely didn’t expect him to start crying uncontrollably outside our room just because I told him my voice was back. All right, so he could be putting it on, but why would he? I’ve already destroyed the evidence (by accident, but still) so I can’t use it to accuse him. I can’t do anything to him.

“Baz, it’s all right,” I tell him again. “You’re not going to go to prison or anything.”

He doesn’t look up. He’s still shaking. We’re lucky that there aren’t any more rooms above ours, otherwise someone might need the staircase and have to try and get by Baz, which I don’t think is happening any time soon.

I take a few of the steps down and crouch in front of him.

When my voice was gone, I had to force Baz to look at me so he’d be able to see what I was saying – I do the same thing now. Take his face between my hands (it’s wet and the planes of his cheeks drop off suddenly under his cheekbones – I don’t think Baz has been eating properly for the last month. He’s too thin). Bring his face up towards me.

His eyes are sparkling with tears. They hang on his eyelashes, surrounding deep pools of grey. He’s still leaning on one of his hands, but the hand that was over his eyes is free now and hanging in the air like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“_Baz_.” I don’t know how to get him to stop crying, but I feel like I have to try. It’s Baz’s fault that all this happened, but it’s my fault I smashed the recorder. “Baz––”

I feel Baz’s hand at the back of my neck – it tugs me forward, down the stairs. For a second, just a split second, I think I’m an idiot. I know Baz wants to kill me and he’s already tried to use stairs to do it. But I don’t have time to flail around before Baz has tugged my face into his. Our lips collide. His mouth is wet, just like his cheeks, and he’s moving it, sliding it over my mouth. I taste salt.

It’s not a full-on snog, but it’s not an awkward peck either. It’s definitely a proper kiss.

Baz is _kissing _me. My worst enemy. The bloke whose been trying to kill me for years, who stole my voice less than a month ago, has his mouth pressed against mine and we’re _kissing. _

I suppose it’s quite a nice kiss. Baz smells really good and he’s got great lips, but I’m really not prepared for this.

I jerk my head backwards. Baz lets me go.

“What was that?” I say.

I half-expect Baz to sneer and say something cutting (“_A kiss, Snow. Haven't you and Wellbelove progressed beyond hand-holding yet?”)_. He doesn’t. He shuts his eyes. (At least, he’s stopped crying.)

“I thought I’d never hear your voice again,” he says quietly. “I may have overacted. To you saying my name.”

This doesn’t make any sense.

“You _kissed_ me,” I point out. Because I feel like Baz hasn’t addressed that point at all.

He glares at me from between my hands (I’m still holding his face – I thought it would be more awkward to stop, like it would let him know that I’d noticed). The glaring is better than the crying. And less confusing than the kissing. At least, I know this Baz. 

“I won’t do it again,” he says. Like it was all a big mistake. One of his hands reaches up and taps impatiently at my fingers on his cheek. “Do you think you might let me go at some point?”

I think about it. About letting Baz go, so he can skulk off somewhere he can come up with more of these stupid plots, which just make both of us miserable. He’ll get himself expelled or thrown in jail if I let him go. They might even take his voice. I can’t let that happen. Not when I can keep him here, under my hands, where I know where he is.

“I’m not going to let you go,” I tell Baz. “Not ever.”

And I lean down and kiss him back.

*

We stay there – kissing – on the stairs for a while. I’m not sure how long. (I don’t point out that Baz said he wouldn’t ever kiss me again. Clearly, he didn’t mean it.) At some point, I let Baz move up onto the same step as I’m on, so he doesn’t fuck up his knees. That makes it weirder, since he’s taller than me and I have to tilt my head up towards him instead of down. I’ve never kissed anyone taller than me before, but then I’ve never kissed a bloke before and I _never _thought I’d be kissing Baz, so I guess in the grand scheme of things, I don’t need to worry about it.

I probably _should_ be worried about kissing Baz, since I still think he’s a vampire and he tried to kill me all those times (maybe this is his new plot to kill me – maybe vampire spit will turn me into a vampire). But I’m not. For some reason, I do actually believe he wants to kiss me. In fact, it’s putting a lot of things in perspective. Like how Baz and I never get changed in front of each other. And why he was so mean to Philippa.

I wonder how long he’s liked me. Was he always just pulling my pigtails? (Which is a spell, although it’s banned for obvious reasons.) I want to ask, but kissing Baz is going really well, and I don’t want to stop and maybe piss him off. I just want to keep kissing him.

I wonder how long I’ve liked _him_.

Eventually Baz points out it’s getting dark and we should probably go back to our room – which is about a metre away up the stairs. The door’s still open. I guess he didn’t want to move either. Now we’ve stopped, though, I can feel my arse has gone a bit numb sitting on the stone step for so long, so it probably is a good idea to go inside.

“Yeah, all right,” I say.

Baz collects his violin and I pick up the broken tape recorder, although I drop in the bin as I pass. I’m looking forward to getting back to kissing again, just on a softer surface this time, but when I check back with Baz, he’s frowning. Even I’m surprised at how quickly this has gone wrong.

“What?”

“I don’t understand you,” Baz says. He points at the bin holding the tape recorder. “Don’t you think you might need that as evidence at some point?” 

“No,” I say. “Why? Are you still planning to kill me?”

“Obviously not. But you can’t be sure I won’t.”

I think Baz is giving himself a bit too much credit at this point. Yeah, up until this morning I thought Baz was an evil vampire trying to kill me and overthrow the Mage. But now? I’ve seen him crying because he’s so relieved I’m all right and we just made out in the stairway for so long I lost a lot of feeling below the waist.

I’m pretty sure he’d prefer me to be alive than dead.

I’d point all that to him, but I can see Baz has worked himself up into a tizz again. I don't think he's going to listen. Also, it’s been too long since we were kissing, so I just pull him back towards me and take his face in my hands again.

“How can you even want to have anything to do with me?” Baz asks before I can bring our mouths together. He sounds back on the verge of tears. “Simon, I took your _voice_.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But. I mean, it seems like you’ve learned your lesson. And listen – I got better, didn’t I? Imagine if you _had _killed me. I couldn’t forgive you for that.”

I think I feel him shudder (although it might be because the windows are open – I know he gets cold easily) but all he says is, “True.”

“Just - stop thinking about it, yeah?” I tell him and now I do kiss him.

Baz lets me push my tongue into his mouth. I feel him relax and then I feel his fingers tightening on the back of my jumper and sort of pulling at it. I think he might be trying to work out how to get it off me, but instead he pulls away.

“I can’t,” he says. “You have no idea how much I want this, but before I lose my mind, there’s one more thing I do have to know.” 

I step back from him so he can get it out. Whatever this thing is that’s worse than everything else we’ve already covered. I watch as Baz crosses his arms over his chest.

“How the hell," he says, "did Bunce manage to get your voice back in an _hour_?” 

**BAZ**

“It was easy once you gave me the recorder,” Bunce explains. Annoyingly. “You still had your headphones in - I just swapped them for a speaker and played Simon’s voice back to him.”

“S’what I said,” Snow says through a mouthful of scone. “He didn’t believe me.”

We’re in the dining hall. At breakfast – and I’m sitting with Snow and Bunce. Wellbelove was here, too, earlier, but I think she found the whole me-and-Snow thing a bit weird. She made an unconvincing excuse about catching up with Stainton and beat a hasty retreat ten minutes ago.

I don’t blame her. It _is _weird.

Snow decided to celebrate both the return of his voice and our relationship by standing up and announcing, “In case anyone’s wondering – yes. Baz and I _are_ dating.”

I heard several items of crockery break, including the mug Wellbelove was drinking from. Over the other side of the room, Dev actually spat out his coffee – over Niall, which is why both of them also left breakfast early. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

At least Snow didn’t tell everyone we spent the night kissing in his bed. Or that I fell asleep in his arms. Although I think Bunce might have guessed most of it. Snow has a hickey just above the top of his collar, which he wouldn’t let me spell away for him this morning, and she keeps looking at it.

Clearly, so do I, but that's different. Last night still feels like a dream. I like knowing I can see the proof it really happened every time I look at Snow. (I like looking at Snow full stop.)

I still don’t understand how he can be like this. How me almost destroying him can possibly result in a situation where Snow asked me to go out with him and allowed me to suck on his neck. (I haven’t told him I really am a vampire, but I know he suspects and he _still _let me do it.) (He’s an idiot, but he’s my idiot now and everyone can see it.) How can any story that started this way end with me having breakfast with his best friend, talking about how exactly I almost ruined his life, while he tries to see how many scones he can eat before the term ends?

I feel like I’ve been given a reprieve far beyond what I deserve.

Obviously, I’m not looking forward to going back to my family next week and telling them _why _I won’t be able to work on any of the ‘take the Mage’s Heir out of our way’ schemes anymore. And that I think that generally we should stop them. (My father was already upset enough when I told him I was queer; I can’t imagine how he’ll react when he realises exactly who I’m giving up my mother’s legacy _for._) But it’s a small price to pay.

Because Snow’s right – I could easily have killed him. Not on purpose (probably), but accidentally? By not asking. By not being careful enough. It could have happened. Frankly, it’s astonishing that it didn’t. And if it had – 

Well. I don’t know what I would have done.

It would have been far too late to say I was sorry.

Instead I get this. Snow grinning at me as he works his way through a pile of scones. I let him see that I’m smiling too before I turn back to Bunce.

“Forgive me, I assumed that you’d done some complex magic that Snow didn’t understand.”

She shakes her head. “The tape-recorder was a symbol. That’s how its magic worked. All it needed was to be used symbolically in reverse.”

I try not to look too put-out – the point is that Snow’s voice is back – but I know I could have thought of that. It’s galling.

“What did you try?” Bunce asks. “**Return to sender?”**

“And another fifty reversal spells, none of which––”

“Hold on,” Snow says. He swallows the rest of the scone in his mouth. “Sorry, why did you have your headphones in the recorder in the first place? What were you even listening to?”

I’d been hoping this wasn’t going to come up. That I’d suffered enough humiliation as a result of Aunt Fiona’s brilliant tape-recorder idea already, but I suppose I do owe Snow the truth. (I owe him more than that.)

“There was a short recording of your final words on the tape,” I tell him. “I may have listened to it a few times while I was trying to work out what to do.”

Snow shakes his head. “You had those headphones on almost all last week.”

“More than a few times,” I admit.

Snow starts laughing. “Baz. You’re so into me,” he says as I glare at him. “Much more than Philippa. _And _you learned sign language - Penny says."

"You were seen trying to cast **Make a wish** last week during Chemistry," Bunce explains cheekily. "And failing."

“Kill me,” I tell my boyfriend. “Now.”

Snow’s still laughing. He pulls me towards him and I let him, even though I really _am _embarrassed (I can feel myself blushing – it’s horrific). Even though we’re in public and Bunce is definitely watching.

“No, thanks,” Snow says. “You know I like this better.”

And he kisses me.


End file.
